And then we watched some movies

In the last week, I've caught up on all the kids' movies that I'd wanted to see.

We've watched:

How to Train Your Dragon (cute, and fun, but not as amazing as the interwebs would have you believe)

Eragon (not as terrible as the interwebs would have you believe)

Flushed Away (hilarious - how did I miss it?)

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (very cute, with a great Al Roker cameo)

We also watched the new Matt Smith Doctor Who. Great writing and a super-spunky sidekick. And even though he's NOT David Tennant, I think Matt Smith can stay. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure that the BBC have already decided that.

I bought a pillow form last weekend - my plan is to make a quilted pillow for the couch, inspired by this beautiful (and sold out) one made by Manda of TreeFall. There are also some really inspiring ones on flickr, here. Especially this one. 

I think some of these might make an appearance...

Oh, and Moose made me post this one. He likes the quilt. A lot.

The End (of the quilt and of Doctor David Tennant)

Last night we watched the final David Tennant Doctor Who episodes. I'd missed them at Christmas when they originally aired, and the iPlayer download that I had was corrupted. NOOOOOO!

As much as I want D.T. and Catherine Tate to be "The Doctor and Donna" forever, I thought the last episode was really good. A little nostalgia, a lot of running, and some silly jokes. And then a regeneration. 11th Doctor? Not sure how I feel about him yet. The first episode of the newly Tennant-less Doctor Who is tonight...we'll see how it goes.

While we were watching, I finished binding my quilt. I love how it turned out. There are some really gorgeous ones in the Flickr pool - go check them out!

I love how bright it is - and since I finished it midway through the tv-watching last night, I can also vouch for the fact that it's soft and reasonably warm.

We're having a mad weather-day today - it's either pouring or bright sunshine and nothing in between. I don't think I'm brave enough to hang the washing out on the line but I may break out the e-cloth and wash some windows. Spring!!

Spring!

Spring is finally here. As demonstrated by our garden: 

And our "Easter tree". The boys think I've lost my marbles. But I love it. This little dude is rockin' his branch.

And, no the front hall table doesn't normally look like that. I cleared all the clutter off first. :)

And, finally, since the rest of the "on the road to spring" quilt-along peeps have finished their quilts, I bit the bullet and did some free motion quilting. Some of the stitches are very small and perfect, some are really teeny and a little bit scrunched, and some are h u g e and rather spread out. Oh well - when you look at it from a distance, it's perfect. I love the crinkly look that it gives the quilt - it makes it look very casual.

I was reading a Sainsbury's Magazine at the in-laws yesterday, and came across a recipe for tomato, olive & spinach quiche with sauteed leeks, in the "quick meals" feature. I got all excited.

Then, I read the recipe.

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 200C.
Step 2: Open a 400g packet of Tomato, Olive & Spinach quiche, and put it in the oven.

EPIC FAIL.

Week 4 of the quilt-along - it's sandwich time! I had quite a bit of extra batting - they only had it in the wide width (and I've looked online and I was WAY overcharged for it). Grr. Anyway, barring that frustration, I've sandwiched the whole thing tother and pinned it.

I'm slightly worried about the quilting part - I might have to call the Sewing Machine Guru in Bury and see if there's a free-motion foot for my Silver or if I should (a) just suck it up and "stitch in the ditch" or (b) outsource it to a fellow Bury Bach Choir-er (and quilting pro), Jan Chandler.

John was in Waitrose and found this new Kleenex box design. He thought it was so funny he bought it and brought it home to show me. I'll have to ration the tissues - I think it's baaaaaarmy!

James and I made lemon & blueberry cake from the April BBC Good Food - it was pretty easy and is exceedingly yummy. It was perfectly moist with a fair bit of zing from the lemon curd and zest, cut by the sweetness of the sugar in the cake and the icing.

Mmmm...lemony blueberry-y icingy goodness.

No, really, it was good icing. See?

I cut my squares and rectangles for the OTRTS quilt along today. Since I had one extra fabric, the lime green has been re-allocated to my stash. I think there could definitely be a v. cute baby quilt to be had from the various leftovers. One of my work/book group buddies is due in July - I should be able to sort something out by then!

Here's a picture of the cut rectangles, along with the instructions on ihavetosay and my super-shiny MacBook Pro of Awesomeness. And my cutting mat which I have temporarily reclaimed from the boys, who have been using it so they don't get paint on the kitchen table when they're building things. Ahem.

It mostly went quite smoothly, except for the "how to get a straight edge" part. According to the instructions:

Make a small cut on one of the cut edges (a 1/4 inch cut about 1/2 inch into your fabric). Then start tearing. This sounds a bit scary, but it won't hurt anything.

I did get a straight line, but it also seemed to leave a wavy edge and some vaguely wonky fabric. Operator failure? Quilters: comments welcome. Anyway, the rectangles seem sufficiently rectangular and the white squares are also ready to go. Monday's instructions will involve actual sewing. Swoon.

BTW, for those of you who've noticed, the new banner is a photo that James took last spring at Snape Maltings.

The book over there is my new ringing book, The Method Ringer's Companion. It's pretty funny - it's written in a conversational style and Steve Coleman has a predictably dry and British sense of humor. John, for some reason, doesn't find it funny and is mysteriously irritated when I read passages out to him while giggling. Harumph.

I was thinking about it when I rang my first QP of Plain Bob Triples (inside!) at Stowmarket last Sunday. ::happy dance:: It was one of the most enjoyable QPs so far - all of the usual suspects in what is technically my home tower. Home is where the blankie is!

Gulp...a real quilt

OK, so I've made quilts before. Gabi has two of them: a big one and this stroller one. But every time I've made a quilt, it's been more of a "make it up as I go along" exercise than an actual quilt. And I've never bound a quilt before.

In a moment of insanity, I've joined Randi's On the Road To Spring quilt-along on her blog,i have to say.

So, yesterday I went to Bury (well, we all went to Bury) and I went to Mill House fabric to buy my 10 1/3-yard pieces. And the batting (which was SO expensive). I like my fabrics, although the selection wasn't great. They weren't busy, either. I definitely got the sense that pulling ALL the fabrics I was interested in off the shelf was NOT the done thing, from the employees and other customers. And that they were doing me a favor by letting me shop there. Sorry, guys - I'm dropping rather a large amount of money in your store - I can move the fabrics around if I want to. I'll put them all back, I promise. The whole thing made me wish that I still lived a subway-ride away from purlpatchwork in Soho (although it wasn't there when I lived there, and I didn't have a sewing machine then).

In any case, I started out with my off-white "background" color and two Liberty fabrics that I've been saving for something. Since I've been saving them for at least 2 years now, it's time to get moving. So they were my jumping-off point for the quilt. They're the florals on the left in both of the little pictures.

I think it's kind of neat that I found similar fabrics to both in the fabric store - I especially like the red/blue florals because the flowers are exactly the same.

Anyway, this is my "favorites" pile:

And then, at the bottom, is the whole enchilada. The creamy one right at the bottom is my "background" color. The light blue and creamy florals (same fabric, different colorway) are the backing and binding fabrics, respectively. I got enough so that I can chicken out on one or two of the other ones and use them on the front as well. I also like them enough that I'll definitely be able to think of other things to make with them. I'm a little nervous after looking at the other fabric choices in the flickr group - mine seems a little...er...scattered.

It's funny - I keep fretting randomly about each fabric in the pile (except the one on the top right and the two at the very bottom). But all of the other ones pick up colors in those, and they're all pretty much floral or floral-looking (ahem snowflakes and dragonflies - where did you come from?). And that orange-yellow is pretty intense, except then you realise that it's in the dragonflies and the center of all the flowers. See - I've been at it all day.

Onward!